For the past six months, I’ve worked with a start-up, WineLabs, and its founder, Ilias Miraoui, to build what is the largest analysis of wine lists from 1,063 Michelin-starred restaurants worldwide. The idea was simple: if these are the best restaurants, with the best sommeliers and the deepest cellars, what do they actually serve? My hypothesis was that we would uncover niche wine markets—hidden gems known only to insiders. But that’s not what we found.
From an article in Everyday Drinking by Sara Danese:
Not that of a surprising read. Stars and brand (perception) goes hand in hand. I don’t think the majority of the visitors are wine nerds like us here even if they are likely to enjoy a good glass of wine. Hence going for an exclusive experience known brands in wine are more likely to be a hit. From a very small sample of lists I’ve seen the pricing strategy in some cases seems geared to sell brand wines as well.
Perhaps it makes sense with the audience in mind - are they really bothered by and thinking of finding gems and affordable (relative value, maybe yes) wines when visiting restaurants with stars?
If someone wants to find gems in wine lists then it would be much more interesting to review the star wine list’s restaurants.
Which is something I found at the wine shop in Milano’s food ‘mecca’ Peck. Whilst impressive that so many prestigious labels were gathered together in one shop, it didn’t take too long to realise that it lacked a wine enthusiast’s drive to hunt out the interesting, unusual gems. Instead it came across as a place to acquire bottles guaranteed to impress, which I guess in Milano is more of a thing than the rest of Italy.
I did used to appreciate the Duemilavini (aka Bibenda wine) guide, run by the Italian sommeliers organisation. It’s not perfect, nothing ever is, but I sensed more of a questing joy, than a means to acquire and show the obviously prestigious.
I think it also depends on exactly where the restaurant is located. I find the Michelin restaurant wine lists in New York City, for example, very challenging because they are mostly made up of young but yes, very broad offerings, and with very high multipliers. If you want something mature, expect to pay bigly.
Now, most of the Michelin restaurants that I have been at in Provence - twice in the last two years and then again this Sunday - tend to be pretty darn good. Sure you can go for DRC or Lafite and roll big, but the smart money is going with regional wines that pair with the regional cuisines. There are a lot of wonderful producers, think Trevallon and Hauvette, that do not get play on a lot of wine lists, but they do here, and usually with mature offerings. And then, of course, there is my personal favorite, anything Rayas. It’s not hard to find a Michelin restaurant in Provence that has Rayas. One of the places I’m staying at next week has five different bottles, from very well priced Des Tours to a 2010 Pignan that I asked the Somm to set aside (420 Euros). While I did not book this place given the schedule, a restaurant that Patrick Albright recommended to me had a full page of Rayas, including the Unicorn Fonsallete Syrah Cuvee (not the regular Fonsalette). And the pricing is entirely acceptable.
Yes, would have liked to hear more about the sample. Sounds like they analyzed roughly 1/3 of all Michelin starred restaurants worldwide, but unclear from article which countries/cuisine styles were more/less represented.
Also, if the wine lists are similar (as one would expect), would love to hear about the food menus, which presumably converge as well.
Google gave an estimate of 85-90% of all stared restaurants to be in and around large cities. My guess was 90%, perhaps a bit higher (before I searched).
The more interesting would be this 10% group and La Subida in Friuli comes to mind as another good example. Exciting and terrific wines at very good prices from a variety of wine and producers.
I am not surprised that lists tend to lean to top Bordeaux and Burgundy. But there is a whole new generation of sommeliers coming through, and they don’t really value the “old fogey” wines. While the lists are full of the blue chips, they are basically left there because they are so expensive and therefore hard to sell. To some extent, they also need to be there to the list as flagship indicators of the wine list, and Wine Spectator awards. So the new somms hand sell the cool wines.
I am watching on Facebook a blog called Vegas wine. The somm works at Guy Savoy a Michelin starred restaurant. Very entertaining, the guy is knowledgeable and a geek. While there are certainly blue chip wines, there are some interesting other choices, such as a Montus, various California wines, and my hidden gem, a 20 year old NV Champagne.He also has an incredible array of old Cognacs and whiskey to finish the meal. Love this, even if it has an old fashioned charm to it. I would probably go with the wine by the glass program, as the somm seems to love opening interesting bottles to share.
That being said, the prices are as you’d expect, are high, and range from three times to as much eight times the point where I would buy. But it’s Vegas, and who knows, after a windfall, it probably doesn’t hurt as much.
Interesting hypothesis about the difference between wine lists and stock/sales.
But I think this convergence goes well beyond Michelin starred restaurants, it’s just different wines.
10-15 years ago when natural wine was becoming mainstream, it was the same handful of producers on all the ‘cool’ lists. Today there are more names, but it still feels like each cultural subset has its short list of champion wines that show up on restaurants that cater to its crowd.
Obviously an oversimplification, but maybe someone can do the analysis and map out the broader universe of producers/wine lists/restaurants.
I wasn’t talking about corkage versus BYO . There is a whole thread currently discussing this.
Besides,my taste for older Bordeaux, makes this a non issue, and I will take the corkage, or drink Whisky sours.
The guy at Savoy is dealing with mostly non wine people, and I think it’s a great example of what he does, and the range of wines of a Michelin starred restaurant, coupled with the enthusiasm of an experience sommelier.
Michael, I have eaten at both, although not in Las Vegas. Totally different experiences, and food wise about the same.
In vegas Atelier de Joel Roubechon is the best high end dining experience and it’s not particularly close. The fact that they have relatively inexpensive corkage is just icing on the cake.
There are a lot of other quite nice restaurants there, though, and service level is very high for the west coast. I don’t find the other high end tasting menu style restaurants (i.e. Picasso) to be particularly good, though.
Back to my point about location, Orlando restaurants generally have pretty crappy wine lists . We have nine Michelin star restaurants in this town, however. But five of them are Japanese or Japanese influence. Kind of makes things easy as I am happy as a clam ordering a nice Kabinett, which can be both young and inexpensive. Or we have cocktails. One time I did the Saki and tea tasting with the meal. Worked quite well. The ones that I have been to also allow BYOB.
On NYE I went to Omo in Winter Park. We ordered a champagne and a Chablis off the list, then also brought a red. I chuckled that they had two different DRC offerings, and quite well priced all things considered, but they were new release vintages.
Yes, as I noted above, would be interesting to track the trends in food items on menus, as there is herding and trend-following among all segments of the industry.
But would be more about specific preparations of beef. Beef/white meat/fish is the equivalent of a wine list having red/white/sparkling wine, and then the question is what producers/preparations for each category.
We went to an interesting restaurant last weekend that isn’t michelin starred, but does have access to an excellent wine list, that apparently has 50% off on Sundays. A lot of the premium bottles (but not really the DRC) are really expensive on the list, even with the 50% off, but there are some gems.
I posted notes from this last weekend, but we got the 23 Galeyrand Retraits (for $260, which is significantly below US retail low as far as I can tell) which was phenomenal, although it’s one of those amazing village wines that @Mark_Golodetz will say isn’t worth the money.
I don’t find the top wines listed in that article boring at all. But the thesis/complaint is that too many Michelin-starred restaurants’ lists look the same. I suppose that might be boring if all you ever did was eat at Michelin-starred restaurants. Since nobody does that, it’s not really a valid complaint from the consumer’s perspective.